The Purge TV Show Is About People Who Aren’t Purging

The upcoming Purge TV show will center around what people in that universe do on the days they are not purging. The franchise continues to expand, as we’re already awaiting the arrival of a fourth film in the main series which will be called The Purge: The Island and act as a prequel to the events of the previous trilogy. We’re also hearing further details about the TV series which is currently being made, and producer Jason Blum is already telling fans not to expect a simple rehash of the films or a purge-of-the-week story.

From the original film, where director/writer James DeMonaco established the concept of a Purge Night, the movies so far have only partially explored the dystopian future where all crime is legal for one annual time period of 12 hours. The first film in 2013 (with Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey) was mostly a glorified home-invasion yarn. But The Purge: Anarchy explored the city-wide carnage that ensued during that dangerous night, and The Purge: Election Year brought the political themes into perspective. The fourth film will explore the first experimental Purge Night, So in theory that leaves plenty of scope for further exploration of all the personal details that this one night of violence can affect.

“We’re working on kind of exploring what it’s like to live the rest of the year in a world where you can kill someone on a certain day of the year. It definitely makes you think twice if you’re driving and you give someone the finger or something like that. So we’re definitely thinking about different things that might happen in a society where killing was legal 12 hours a year. There are a lot of things that you don’t think about. You could commit a murder, and then somehow make it seem like it happened on Purge Night and get away with it. There are a lot of things that you can do with that idea, and we’re trying to think of all those different situations in that world.”

All of the Purge films have solely concentrated on that one 12-hour time slot, so this will be new ground for the franchise and a good way to freshen the concept. The producer may even have been hinting at a couple of future story arcs, especially with the comment about ‘committing a murder and making it look like it happened on Purge Night’. It could also make for some interesting relationships, in a society that has laws where someone can look forward to taking blameless retribution on people who have crossed them.

Whilst there is no information yet about the leading characters or an official synopsis, it’s hoped that some of the gritty tone and action from the films will cross over into the show. It also remains to be seen how the episodes will structure themselves if they don’t revolve around the Purge Night itself. A season finale or some flashbacks perhaps? At any rate, we hope that the Midas touch that Blumhouse has shown with low-budget horror continues as they venture onto TV.